Seasons2019-20Everton News

Everton appoint a new head of academy recruitment

Saturday, 25 April, 2020 5comments  |  Jump to last

Everton have appointed a new head of academy recruitment.

Chris Perkins has joined the Finch Farm team after doing the same job at Derby County.

Perkins replaces Martin Waldron who left the club under a cloud last year after being suspended during a club investigation into an illegal approach for a schoolboy player, which was launched following a Premier League probe.

The Blues are understood to have agreed Perkins' transfer late last year but the recruitment chief had to serve out a required period of notice with the Championship club.

The Echo say Perkins is believed to have started in the role last month, just before the suspension of games because of the coronavirus, after being with The Rams since 2014.

In November 2018, Everton were banned from signing Academy players for two years and fined £500,000.

 

Reader Comments (5)

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Harry Wallace
1 Posted 25/04/2020 at 08:49:21
Massive step up for him
Robert Tressell
2 Posted 25/04/2020 at 10:13:08
Important job. DCL, holgate, stones have saved the club millions. Gibson and Branthwaite next hopefully. But there's a long list of nearly but not quite - hornby, sambou, bowler, adeniran etc. One thing richer clubs have done with mixed success is recruit from overseas. City, Liverpool and Man City have lots of foreign kids. Presumably we're still focused on uk kids.
Dave Abrahams
3 Posted 25/04/2020 at 10:49:55
I don't know if Chris Perkins ever played professional football but he seems to have done very well in his job at Derby County, they had one of the best U18 teams in the country this season, knocking Everton out of the FA youth cup, he worked under Darrell Wassell who played for Notts Forest under Brian Clough, hopefully Everton have captured a good new head of the Acadamy to progress the young lads coming through, it was a position that needed looking at, along with the rest of the Acadamy which seemed to have stagnated since Martin Waldron left.
John Raftery
4 Posted 25/04/2020 at 20:43:10
I presume Joel Waldron remains as Director of the Academy and that Perkins will be working to him along with Sean Lundon who is Head of Academy Coaching.
Jerome Shields
5 Posted 03/05/2020 at 12:12:53
I hope the tighter control initiated by the widening of Brands's role to encompass the Under-23 player recruitment and Ancelotti's strategic staff appointments will allow Perkins and the Academy team to work more effectively and improve the synergy between the Academy and first-team operations which has been lacking up to now.

There is no doubt that Everton have a highly developed backroom structure, probably developed on the School of Science foundations, but leadership seems to have been a problem, as is getting the most effectiveness out of such an advanced structure.

It seems that the structure has been allowed to develop along administrative, even bureaucratic lines, rather than by what the manager's end product needs on the pitch. Ancelotti has in his belated staff appointments, after the last debacle, and by extending Brands's role (which I was surprised was not Brands's remit anyway) has, in my opinion, attempted to address this problem. Other managers have failed to do this and may not even have tried.

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